official Bards thread

[eggmceye]

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a) bard is a subclass of rogue
b) music is mutually exclusive with stealth - stealth goes down as music goes up, like how maces/blessed maces work
c) music is a spellcasting skill with around 8 spells. 4 of these spells are auras and 4 are abilities
d) music requires a lute equipped in offhand (don't think too hard about playing a lute one handedly)
e) music synergises with foils a little: with foil+lute you can parry/riposte magic!

Bard spells (ie the musicianship skill)
There are 4 auras and 4 abilities. An aura is a AoE buff that is automatically shared/applied to your party members. Only one aura can be played by any one bard at a time. Different bards can play different auras however, making them stack.

Auras
Circle 1 +10% dmg (to all party members)
Circle 3: +1 loot quality (to all party members)
Circle 5: +10% rage gain (to all party members)
Circle 7: +100MR (to all party members) (this should probably scale to level or stat)

Abilities
Circle 2: fear and confusion: mobs within rad 4 have 50% chance of becoming confused, and if not confused will flee
Circle 4: party heal: party members within rad 4 heal 4% of health per sec for 10 sec (non fragile, so can take dmg)
Circle 6: new fans: converts evil summoned creatures to good within 5 rad
Circle 8: bleeding eardrums: a spray attack that causes everything in its wake to bleed for 3 sec

loot quality explained (discord copypasta)

each mob (and chest) has a loot quality rating 0-15
and the + and the chance for artys is determined by that number 0 to 15

eg; white dragon has loot quality 11, while red is 12, black is 13
so with loot qual +1, then the red dragon gets black dragons loot qual

so the + jacks it up as if you had killed something more difficult/with a higher loot rating

but at end of day, its still random - and in euo, just because it is loot qual 14 it is actually randomly 13 to 15 (or something like that)
so if u kill something with q=15 and your buff, makes it 16
needs a lot of testing to make sure actually helps

with q=16+ it cld make arties more common
or adds on to the + of stat items etc
but the loot qual aura is very like, long game
not sure if worth wearing it

source bards thread: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5408

[Roopert]

Having the Auras scale would be awesome. I like the non-fragile heal. That is going to be a lifesaver. I already have an alt ready to go for when you are ready.

[Eclips]

Are the spells gonna cancel out the auras?

[Mackey]

Just spitballing ideas, I know obviously you wouldn't use all of these ideas, if any, but trying to help you get that final polish on bards to get them done

Bard Ideas:

Passive
*Extra 25% to class cap - Gain 1% for every 4% in bard skill gained. Would give bards some classic "jack-of-all-trades" characteristics

*Dodge/Parry/Riposte spells - Think music deflecting magic. Only works with lute in offhand, would make up for no shield, give rogues some survivability, and a truly unique talent. Defender dex vs caster INT and/or defender AS vs caster AS? There has to be something already written that could be tweaked for this. "Spell by [x] blocked by the power of song!"

*Spell Thief - % chance to learn a spell for x amount of time (5-10 mins?) when it's used on you. Not sure about the coding here, but would be a cool way to buff: Go to map with lots of magic users and take XC to the face until you get it. Can only know one spell at a time, so if you get XMP instead of XC, you gotta die or wait until it's done.

Active
Flourish - Single-target slice n dice with chance to stun instead of bleed? Or more of a single-target thunderclap? I feel like fancy bladework is some bard shit. Single-target attack for sure, no bleed (Bard spells are AOE and they have a bleed spell).

Auras
Aura of Quick Study - 2-5% stacking xp bonus

[Keighn]

Thank goodness for alpha to test lvl 1k on the loot. It may feel better on lower level characters. I know in lotl monthlies getting lewt fast was important.

[Roopert]

Just spitballing ideas, I know obviously you wouldn't use all of these ideas, if any, but trying to help you get that final polish on bards to get them done

Bard Ideas:

Passive
*Extra 25% to class cap - Gain 1% for every 4% in bard skill gained. Would give bards some classic "jack-of-all-trades" characteristics

*Dodge/Parry/Riposte spells - Think music deflecting magic. Only works with lute in offhand, would make up for no shield, give rogues some survivability, and a truly unique talent. Defender dex vs caster INT and/or defender AS vs caster AS? There has to be something already written that could be tweaked for this. "Spell by [x] blocked by the power of song!"

*Spell Thief - % chance to learn a spell for x amount of time (5-10 mins?) when it's used on you. Not sure about the coding here, but would be a cool way to buff: Go to map with lots of magic users and take XC to the face until you get it. Can only know one spell at a time, so if you get XMP instead of XC, you gotta die or wait until it's done.

Active
Flourish - Single-target slice n dice with chance to stun instead of bleed? Or more of a single-target thunderclap? I feel like fancy bladework is some bard shit. Single-target attack for sure, no bleed (Bard spells are AOE and they have a bleed spell).

Auras
Aura of Quick Study - 2-5% stacking xp bonus

I really like dodge spell. I think that is my favorite out of the list. It would be a real nice addition to have jack of all trades as well. I always viewed bards as a kind of jack of all, master of none kinda thing.
SIngle target slice and dice would be cool, I usually have just been using gouge anyways.

[Keighn]

In ULTIMA lore they were a bit better than jesters but basically remodeled Larks from U3. Rangers in U3 were the Jack-of-all-trades. Later I’d say the avatar became that. EUOtopia is very much a different beast.

I think we need general dancing icons for those enraptured by dance from the bard.


FYI....

[Kynt]

Add minotaur bards to mino halls or something so you can wand the av!!

For real though I really like the mino bard avatar and I don't think there's any mob with it ingame.

[Keighn]

I just know LordM had to have used that av in one of his maps. He’s used about everything.

[Mackey]

So are bards going to be using mana as a casting resource for music or will we not need mana? Trying to find out if I need to bank a couple levels for sagacity/int shrine.

[Keighn]

I’ll bet as spells with countdown timers for some, unless egg is going to try the ever depleting mana while song is in effect. The latter would be a huge mana hog if it’s per second. Maybe remedied by vigor. I’m betting the former as most spells.

[eggmceye]

placeholder

faq
how i make bard
1) roll one
or
2a) have stealth<90, visit 'school of rock' in uni, get 10% music
2b) aquire lute (seftonvale)
2c) visit pubs (skip nord) and ask about song


remember, music is mutex with stealth. as your music goes up your stealth goes down, and vice versa

[Keighn]

School of Rock. Jack Black comes into my mind. Which is ironic because I just bought a game with him in it for nostalgia value.

[Eclips]

This thots thoughts on bards so far.

Overall the class seems well balanced. A nice balance of party utility and individual play viability. Also enjoyable gameplay.

Fear and confuse is broken. Right now it makes you invincible. Seems like a bug but feared mobs will run for the duration and never attack. Casting the spell when there are multiple mobs eliminates all aggro on you. Id suggest fear wear off when mobs are attacked by players.

The MR aura is all but useless. 100 Mr across an entire party might seem like a decent boost, but the MR system in the game is more or less all or nothing. Only useful if a certain player is close to the MR needed to defend against a certain mob. I purpose switching it with a small magic damage reduction or chance to dodge.

I think you made stealth and music mutually exclusive bc Backstab would be OP on the build. I agree with that sentiment, but think there's no reason a bard couldn't also be stealthy. I suggest switching stealth with short swords.

I haven't used New fans much, but I've never gotten the charm effect to work. In any manner, it seems like a less effective ability than fear and confusion. At a minimum of switch their circles.

[LaughingCoyote]

Confusion (mage spell) works almost the same as Fear and Confusion (bard aura) - because the latter isn't really an aura. You have to cast it to have an effect instead of being on all the time. Its not OP, just annoying.

On the other hand bard buff auras aren't really "auras" in the sense that once the bonus is applied to you - it stays on even if you leave the vicinity of the bard. You don't even need to be in their party to have the buff applied. So you could have 4 bards afk outside nord with different buffs activated, and everyone gets their bonuses just by walking past them.

[eggmceye]

fear and confusion isn't an aura and isn't on all the time !

also the auras (should) wear off when you leave the vicinity so if that isn't happening, that's a bug
ps: just tested, it's busted you know what happens? if you equip a lute then you pick up auras and never lose them. try moving in and out of a bard radius with and without lute equipped.

[LaughingCoyote]

So, its only busted if you are a bard? That isn't too bad I guess? Although then everyone would want to be 10% bard, like how everyone wants to be 12-24% druid.

Also, thanks for clarification re debuff songs not being auras.

[Eclips]

I fully admit I may be wrong here, bc I dont think I ever used confusion for anything other than skill training, but the issue I'm talking about is that Confusion can fail, Fear and Confusion cannot (Everything thats not confused is feared, either way neither mob will ever attack you for the duration).

If you can cast Fear and Confusion every 5 seconds or so, you're invincible, unless you're fighting 1v1 and the mob gets confused instead of feared. If a lvl 10 were to invis into a group of Epic shadow lords right now and use fear on confusion, they would survive and could potentially kill them all until the last one (Unless theyre hard coded to be immune to either status). The biggest restraint would be having the time to wear them all down.

[CinisterD]

I fully admit I may be wrong here, bc I dont think I ever used confusion for anything other than skill training, but the issue I'm talking about is that Confusion can fail, Fear and Confusion cannot (Everything thats not confused is feared, either way neither mob will ever attack you for the duration).

If you can cast Fear and Confusion every 5 seconds or so, you're invincible, unless you're fighting 1v1 and the mob gets confused instead of feared. If a lvl 10 were to invis into a group of Epic shadow lords right now and use fear on confusion, they would survive and could potentially kill them all until the last one (Unless theyre hard coded to be immune to either status). The biggest restraint would be having the time to wear them all down.

This is probably the one spell I have more experience with than anyone else. I use confusion more than I use chain lightning.

Confusion (the mage version) is actually much better in my opinion. Not bashing the bard version at all, just stating it isn't quite as OP as it may seem. Both confusion spells last about the same time. The mage version has a much larger range, but it INT and MR dependant. The bard version seems to ignore MR (as it should imo), but has a smaller range.

I think the downside to the bard version is the range. Ive gotten killed already by mobs outside of the song range, that didn't get confused.

I agree it can be a pretty strong spell, especially for low level. I guess my counter arguement, is backstab is just as powerful. Seems like a fair trade-off.

I should also note I'm mage/bard, so I can confuse regardless. I don't lose anything if the spell gets nerfed, but I don't think it should. Just my opinion.

[Keighn]

Just starting a newb bard. Started out with a lute, rapier, and the +10% damage song. But I wanted to try out the stealth first (got up to 20) then tried the bard song. Yep, that works fine.

Wondering how long the song lasts since I don't see a counter. Guess I'll figure it out.